Breadcrumb

Airlines look to apps as trusted travel companions

Airlines look to apps as trusted travel companions

3 minute read

Flyers of a certain age can remember when a highlight of inflight "entertainment” was tracking your flight’s route on a grainy bulkhead screen halfway up the cabin, via a map that had the graphic sophistication of Atari.

Now, passengers can do that right from their smartphone. On an interactive, live map capable of pointing out interesting landmarks as you fly over them.

No longer just for mobile check-ins and flight status, airline apps have the power to dramatically enhance the inflight experience and boost customer loyalty. Here are a few ways carriers are improving their apps to strengthen that connection.

Help flyers get ready for takeoff

Passengers already use airline apps to check their departure gate, change their seat selection and pre-pay for baggage. Imagine also being able to create an inflight playlist, preselect movies or bookmark duty-free shopping selections to order onboard. Adding additional customer-experience features that help passengers get flight-ready is a great way to make the app more sticky – and less likely to be deleted.

Customize the onboard experience

Once a passenger’s personal electronic device is paired with the seatback monitor, the seat is transformed from a generic to a personal experience. Airline companion apps empower passengers to control and customize their cabin experience, from resuming a movie where they left off on their last flight, to recalling their in-seat lighting and seat positioning preference.

Content-focused features on companion apps are just the point of entry for a more dynamic, ‘sit back and be transported’ experience, notes Raymond Kollau, founder of Airline Trends and co-founder of the PaxEx 360 passenger experience design consultancy.

“As showcased with Panasonic’s Waterfront seating concept, synchronizing personal data between a customer’s smartphone and the IFE system allows the creation of more immersive ‘just-for-me’ experiences,” says Kollau.

Enable multi-tasking

Multi-screening is a way of life on the ground. Giving passengers this capability at 30,000 feet removes friction and elevates their onboard experience. Who wants to pause the movie playing on their seatback screen to check their flight arrival gate when they can just tap an app and see it on their smartphone? Ditto for paying for drinks or duty-free purchases. Companion apps designed to let passengers multitask keep them as comfortable in the air as they are at home. Which keeps them flying their favorite airline.

Preparing students for next gen tech careers

Preparing students for next gen tech careers

7 minutes

On a warm day in October in downtown Newark, NJ, a group of high school students investigated properties of sunscreen in a commercial-grade lab building that measures about the size of a baseball diamond. The 10,000 square-foot center features six working analytical laboratories and two virtual laboratory studios each equipped with a hybrid communications platform.

The center seeks to close the gap in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education by offering experiential learning to all Newark students in fifth through 12th grades with programs that improve students’ affinity and aptitude for technical careers, as well as professional development for teachers and real-world instruction led by volunteer professional scientists.

Inspiring future tech company CEOs

The center aims to work with 32,000 local students by 2019 and already supports many with labs that explore real-life scientific applications. The goal is to provide these students with a pathway to becoming the next generation of data scientists, programmers, information architects and tech company CEOs.

A commitment to helping students understand the kinds of jobs the future promises, and helping to train them for those positions, drove Panasonic to partner with local nonprofit leaders, as well as state and municipal officials to open Students 2 Science Newark Technology Center.

Panasonic’s involvement is not only an extension of our core principles but also our commitment to support local efforts that advance educational excellence. During the center’s opening ceremony, Tom Gebhardt, Chairman and CEO of Panasonic Corporation of North America, awarded a $1.5 million grant on behalf of the Panasonic Foundation.

Settings that drive ingenuity & innovation

The Foundation looks to schools as transformative learning environments that will drive innovation and ingenuity. One of its goals is to address the widespread gap between future jobs and lack of education in science, tech, engineering and math especially in low-income communities. This can have a devastating impact on prospects for employment. The statistics are sobering. “Nationally, just 25 percent of high school seniors are able to do grade-level math…Those numbers are egregiously lower among African-American and Hispanic students,” according to an NBC News report.

In New Jersey, home to Panasonic’s North American headquarters, roughly 20% of state students go off to college for STEM disciplines—one of the highest rates in the country.

But there is a gap. Of the 1.2 million public school students in New Jersey, a significant number live in communities with struggling schools that put them at a disadvantage for success in postsecondary education and the global workforce. Nationally, studies show that STEM education programs are dramatically under-resourced, particularly in low-income communities. By 2030, two-thirds of the fastest growing industries will require a postsecondary credential or degree. With the projected growth of STEM occupations, there is a critical need to provide students with access to opportunities that will unlock their potential and ignite their interest to pursue careers in the STEM fields.

Volunteers aim to do just that by offering expertise and enthusiasm. “With Panasonic being one of the leading companies in technology and being here in Newark, it’s a great chance for us to foster interest in next gen careers, especially with students who have curiosity in mathematics, science and engineering,” said Hamid James, a solutions architect based in Panasonic’s Newark headquarters, who volunteers at the center.

Understanding water pollution and impacts of sun screen

In the center, students work side-by-side with volunteer professional scientists using modern instrumentation to investigate critical world issues, such as the impact of global overpopulation on food sources, water pollution, pandemics, as well as the stuff of daily life, such as how sunscreen works. These real-world investigations are grounded in Newark's curriculum and the "Next Generation Science Standards"—rigorous science standards adopted by the state—and represent some of the most vital issues facing today's youth.

The center also offers its virtual labs, where students do hands-on, project-based learning with professional scientists right at their desks. This remote instruction broadens the center’s reach by eliminating geographic barriers and language constraints through Connectivity, a sophisticated proprietary communications platform available in 200 spoken languages with interpreters on demand. Teachers are also offered opportunities for professional development and technical assistance. Both in-lab and in-class instruction include mentoring, and curriculum compatible with the Next Generation Science Standards and career pathways for 21st century jobs.

As we look toward the future, it is evident that the talent that we have in our classrooms today will be the talent that occupies STEM jobs in the future. Investments made by the Panasonic Foundation continue to focus on incubating new ideas and developing public/private partnerships that directly impact students and provide them with the skills and credentials they are going to need to lead fulfilling and successful lives. At the same time, we continue to uphold the values of Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic who articulated seven basic principles (contribution to society, fairness and honesty, cooperation and team spirit, untiring effort for improvement, courtesy and humility, adaptability, gratitude) not long after founding the company in 1918. We are committed to funding forward-thinking initiatives such as the Students 2 Science Newark Technology Center and are extremely proud to stand alongside our partners in making investments in education that will prepare the future workforce that will drive innovation at Panasonic for the next 100 years.

Photography by Christopher Lazaro

Authors

Alejandra Ceja
- Executive Director of the Panasonic Foundation

Alejandra Ceja runs Corporate Social Responsibility for Panasonic North America and serves as Executive Director of the Panasonic Foundation

Disruption coming to our cities, roads and skies

Disruption coming to our cities, roads and skies

In a Connected World, life revolves around getting to our destinations as quickly, safely and comfortably as possible. That’s the daily challenge facing organizations in the automotive and aviation sectors, as well as government agencies that build, operate and patrol our transportation infrastructure.

In this fourth article from the Moving Forward research series, Panasonic Corporation of North America assesses how senior technology decision makers in these industries view our Connected World, the technologies they see driving us forward, and the impact these technologies will have on their future plans.

By 2025, 10 disruptive technologies are expected to generate trillions of dollars of economic impact. Our new study reveals that Connected World industries – aviation, automotive, and government agencies involved in transportation infrastructure – have already adopted five of these technologies on average. And four have risen to the top of their innovation agendas – energy storage, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and sustainable energy. Panasonic is deeply engaged in all of them.

How tech decision makers view our fast-changing world

Energy storage: the biggest opportunity gap

As one automaker remarked, the coming transition from internal combustion to electric vehicles (EV) will be “the biggest revolution in transportation this millennium.” And clearly, when it comes to widespread use of energy storage, the automotive sector is a pioneering leader. Overall, among Connected World industries, some 37% have adopted energy storage technologies. Another 48% are planning to invest in or adopt it soon.

Panasonic is seeing soaring demand for this technology in our own business. As a market leader in lithium ion batteries, we’ve invested heavily with global automotive partners to propel the growth of this disruptive technology.

Autonomous vehicles: strong growth in adoption expected

Connected vehicles with advanced driver-assistance systems are already entering our roadways. Built with equipment such as top view camera systems that provide a 360-degree bird’s eye view – plus sensors that detect airbag deployment, windshield wiper operation, engagement of brakes, etc. – these vehicles can transmit data about their status to other connected vehicles on the roadways and emerging intelligent roadway infrastructure.

Autonomous vehicle technology builds on this connected vehicle foundation. Many tech decision makers in our Connected World industries think riding in an autonomous vehicle will be exciting, while a few admit it might terrify them. Still, two in three tech decision makers expressed an intent to adopt autonomous vehicle technology. This represents a 54% increase over current adoption of autonomous vehicle technologies.

Artificial intelligence: personalizing the mobile experience

After the cloud and mobile devices/apps/commerce, artificial intelligence is seen as the disruptive technology most critical to the future success of organizations. In fact, nine of 10 decision makers see AI as a way to personalize how they engage with their customers and predict future needs. The number one obstacle? Finding a strategic partner to develop a roadmap for integrating it.

In Colorado, Panasonic is creating a pioneering intelligent roadway system, designed to ingest two billion data points from connected vehicles each hour. Applying machine learning and predictive analytics to this massive data set, the system will enable the Colorado DOT to send personalized alerts and optimal routing suggestions to each connected vehicle on the road.

Sustainable energy: five in six have plans to invest

Two-thirds of Connected World organizations have either adopted sustainable energy or plan to do so in the near future. Only one in six has no plans to invest. Many decision makers view adopting sustainable energy, such as solar and EV, as a no-brainer: “It saves us money and is good for the earth.”

Three emerging technologies

In addition to the 10 disruptive technologies that were the primary focus of this survey, Panasonic also identified three emerging technologies that appear to hold great promise in Connected World industries:

Biometric: four in five organizations say they’re likely to adopt these technologies in the next three to five years, with features such as authentication enabling them to enhance security and create more personalized experiences

Next-generation communications: almost half believe that technologies like 5G and high-speed satellite will transform their industries by 2022

We’ll be exploring these emerging technologies in future trend articles.

The price of staying in business – Panasonic’s perspective

Finally, we found that five in six Connected World organizations agree that embracing disruptive technologies is essential to remaining competitive today.

Many of these organizations realize they need a strategic partner to get the most out of disruptive technologies. With experience incorporating them all into integrated business solutions, Panasonic may be the ideal partner in helping you embed these technologies in ways that can move your organization forward.

About the research

This research was commissioned by Panasonic Corporation of North America and fielded in the U.S. and Canada. The survey included 100 CTOs and other senior technology decision makers in organizations with at least 200 employees. It was completed July 2018.